


Tiny flowers

by goldragon (ledbythreads), ledbythreads



Category: Led Zeppelin
Genre: 1960s, Album: Led Zeppelin III, Alternate Universe - Teenagers, Boys In Love, Chapters rated individually, Growing Up Gay, LGBTQ Character, LGBTQ Themes, Led Zeppelin References, M/M, Peer teen love story, Queer History, Queer Themes, Queer Youth, Romance, Song: That's The Way (Led Zeppelin), Teen Romance, True Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-01
Updated: 2020-09-17
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:48:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 17
Words: 1,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26238853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ledbythreads/pseuds/goldragon, https://archiveofourown.org/users/ledbythreads/pseuds/ledbythreads
Summary: for Zeptember 2020 I'm writing all the prompts about our co-authored queer teen romance AU 'The Boy Next Door'.Jimmy and Robert are two kids growing up on the same street in Birmingham in the 1950s/60s who fall in love before it is legal to be gay/bisexual. They meet as young children and create a deep friendship that blossoms into romance that their community will not accept.https://archiveofourown.org/works/23007100/chapters/55009420
Relationships: Jimmy Page/Robert Plant
Comments: 26
Kudos: 41
Collections: Zeptember





	1. Rain song

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The boy next door](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23007100) by [ledbythreads](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ledbythreads/pseuds/ledbythreads), [thebookhunter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebookhunter/pseuds/thebookhunter). 

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 1 prompt - Love
> 
> Rating - general
> 
> 1960

Now he knows what the carvings on the willow mean. They are not the first ones to fall in love. He wants to wrap Jimmy’s letters round his own.

RP🤍JP

He wants to ink them onto his wrist, under his jumper, so he canlook in class. He wants to cut them into their tree. To kiss Jimmy right after he shows him . He wants to draw them over all his exercise books. He wants to trace their letters with soft fingers over Jimmy’s heart. 

Instead he draws them in the rain on the window. Then wipes them away.


	2. The Rover

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 2 prompt - underfoot
> 
> Rating - general
> 
> 1954

“Stop moping Jamie. You can’t flop here all day with your nose in a book.”

“But it’s Homer”

“You’re under my feet. And nobody likes boys who look all wilted. Would Odysseus sit inside on a day like today?” 

“Odysseus couldn’t go home...”

“Well he sounds just like your father. Making excuses. You simply must go out. I’m not going to dust you like an ornament.”

“I don’t know any chaps to play _with_.”

“You are eight Jamie, you don’t need to know anyone. Go and run along now. Call on that urchin pirate child. Sings like a siren?”

“Robert”


	3. Thank You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 3 prompt - Lemon
> 
> Rating - general
> 
> 1957

Such a lemon.

Robert lies dazed for a moment, half in the ditch. He can hear this wizzy-tick-tick noise and realises it’s the bike wheel still spinning.

Jimmy’s bike.

Oh no.

Careful hands untangle him and pull him back into Jimmy’s lap. Long fingers tickle over him till they find sore places. He winces.

“Sorry”

“Your bike. I’m sorry. Your mom Jimmy?”

“Hush. You’re all scraped.”

“You don’t have -“

“My hands are cleaner. So’s my hankie.”

His cut knee. Jimmy pressing so tenderly. A sudden sharp feeling in his chest, something squeezy low in his tummy.Fizzy like pop.


	4. What is and what should never be

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 4 prompt  
> Fool in the rain
> 
> Rating - Teens and up 
> 
> 1960

Jimmy watches Robert twirling, from the shelter of their den. He’s singing and spinning. Jumping up onto rocks. Gene Kelly Elvis.

“Gosh Robert. You’re soaked”

“S’ok. I’m wet on the inside anyway.” he shouts over the downpour.

His otter. Curly hair sleek now. Raindrops falling on him like diamonds. Wet.

Like dreams.

“Come out here.” He’s laughing

It is like he’s forgotten the awful thing. Jimmy knows it is not pretending. Knows Robert cannot ever forget. But he’s playing the fool because he isn’t broken.

Jimmy goes to him. Holds him. Kisses him, openmouthed. Their love feels like a rainbow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No spoilers - but in the main story Robert has endured an abusive situation with a family member.


	5. Black Country Woman

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 5 prompt - black
> 
> rating - general (cn Racism) 
> 
> 1960
> 
> So Joan is Robert’s cousin and just a little older.

Robert twists his fingers in his pockets.

“Jean, are you Black?” he blurts out.

“What, you never noticed, bab?”

She looks like she might pat him on the head. See if he has brains or straw in there.

“I wasn’t, I mean cos your dad is Jamaican, I mean the blues and that, like whathaveyou with slavery in America and...”

“Robert, love, there was slavery in the West Indies”

“There was?”

“Do you know why Mr Reed teaches me piano now?”

“Does he?”

“Because school said coloured girls don’t play Chopin. You want to know about the blues? ask _me_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So ‘Black’ has a different history in Britain than the US. At times Black and Black British has been a much wider identity than people of African heritage (at various times also including people of South Asian and Arab descent - similar to ‘People of Colour’. During the 1950s hundreds of thousands of people migrated from the West Indies to Britain at the encouragement of the British government. Most of these people were descended from African people enslaved in the plantation system - but West Indian people are also often of heritage from other peoples who were indentured or enslaved there. So Robert is confused because language is in flux and because Jean and her twin Joan are of dual heritage. He’s 13 and he’s trying. 
> 
> So Jean and Joan are peripheral characters in the story - partly this is my fault and responsibility as a white writer - but also because the actual influence of Black (and South Asian and Arab) heritage people, as opposed to music, is weak in white dominated rock fanon. RP who Robert is loosely based on in this AU, has multiple heritage children with sisters Maureen and Shirley Wilson (Who are Anglo-Indian of afaik Indian, Portuguese, and white British heritage) who he met as a teenager. Robert moved into multicultural scenes in Birmingham and the Black Country area. Many People of Colour have supported him and his career in his family and beyond. So Joan and Jean are cyphers but they are there for a reason - to speak to Robert (and RP’s) life outside of Jimmy/ JP - and the People of Colour* missing or downplayed in that story.
> 
> RP himself, while having a lot of white privilege, has Romanichal (Romany) heritage from his mum. Romany people in Britain experience high levels of racism.


	6. The Wanton Song

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 6 prompt - tangerine 
> 
> rating - mature, perhaps 
> 
> 1960

He unwraps the tissue paper to peek at the little golden fruit inside. He looks round his room. Everything else is blue or grey. He thinks of how beautiful the cherry blouse looked on Robert’s skin. Men used to wear bright things. Not just playing dress up.

Jimmy pulls the peel away and the whole room smells brighter, suddenly. If they wanted to. Do it. Properly? He pushes two fingers in. Where all the segments come together. The fruit falls wide open. Ripe. The seeds visible under the soft skin. He takes one segment into his mouth. Swallows the juice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> of course I was thinking of the peach in Call Me By Your Name...


	7. In The Light

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 7 - communication  
> Rating - general 
> 
> 1960

Jimmy says he needs to climb the lamp-post on Robert’s shoulders. He shows Robert the round mirror from a broken compact. The glue. You’ll see he says.

He’s always tinkering with things. His crystal radio set. The electrics in the speakers of the Dansette.

He’s taught himself squiggly magic writing. Sigils and runes. He teaches Robert morse code, tapping out the rhythm on his belly, as they lie beneath the willow.

Robert watches from his window. Curtained in darkness. Jimmy shines his flashlight. On and off. Dots and dashes of light hitting the mirror. Speaking to Robert.

../ .-.. --- ...- . / -.-- ---..-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AO3 cannot count morse. There are three words. And 97 others.
> 
> Yes those three. 
> 
> If you want to be geeky like Jimmy there’s an online morse code translator at 
> 
> https://morsecode.world/international/translator.html


	8. White Summer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 8 prompt - Middle Earth  
> Rating - General 
> 
> 1956

“What are we the Midlands of, anyway?”

“England, one supposes”

“Two supposes.”

“Bless you. Do you need a hankie?”

“Ha. Why not Wales. And Scotland. Scotland is really long and the middle would be Hadrians Wall, or something. 

“Well they were not joined up then. Scotland was all wild picts and Loch Ness monsters. Then Bonnie Prince Charlie tried to stop the tide turning, to make everyone Christian. So the Romans went home. But it burned down.”

“Is that why it’s called the Black Country?”

“No. You twit. Rome burned down. Not Birmingham”

“You can’t tell that it didn’t, though.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> JRR Tolkien based The Shire in Middle Earth on the Midlands. In this AU Robert and Jimmy are both growing up in a fictional rural suburb of Birmingham.


	9. Black Dog

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 9 - Evermore  
> rating - general
> 
> 1958

The line of boys. Robert in the centre. The horde massing to break their ranks. A silent signal and they charge. Jimmy sees Robert pick out his quarry and bring him down.

Jimmy hangs back. Watching. This time the horde is weaker. The line swollen with the ranks of the fallen. They move like one being. One sea. Robert’s hair shines like a king who rides into battle bare-headed.

Jimmy steps forward. Third time for a story. He feels part of something. A dark knight. The king in his sights. They charge.

Jimmy crashes into Robert’s arms. Goes down hard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They are playing a school ‘battle game’ called British Bulldogs. It’s a thrill to break the line and be free to run again the next time but it can also be thrilling, Jimmy feels, to be caught.


	10. Stairway to Heaven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 10 prompt - Flood  
> rating - general
> 
> 1956

Biblical.

The rain can bugger off. Stuck indoors feels like forty days, but it’s only been one.

No Jimmy.

They go two by two like Noah’s animals. Jimmy says god isn’t real. People think unicorns aren’t real because god drowned them.

Robert doesn’t have a raincoat so he takes Mum’s. Jimmy doesn’t believe in god but he believes in music. Wednesdays are choir practice.

Robert stands dripping at the back. Jimmy’s in his white frock. Listening. Mr Reed sings like god broke his heart but he loves him anyway.Robert feels flooded with certainty. One day he will sing better.


	11. Carouselumbra

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 11 prompt - Confused  
> Rating - general 
> 
> 1960

“It’s ok, bab. Give it to Jimmy”

Robert holds the little stuffed Koala close to his chest, and looks at Jean. Confused.

He won it on the hook-a-duck and Jean’s his date. Sort of. Even if she is his cousin. The carousel music is churning up his stomach.

“Don’t you like it?”

He likes Jean. Likes how she smiles, even if she does cuff him on the back of the head when he’s an idiot. She doesn’t do that now though. She looks serious.

“It’s... follow your heart. Just be. Yknow.”

He doesn’t know. Really.

“Be safe, bab. Jimmy too.”


	12. Tangerine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 12 prompt - Tour  
> Rating - General
> 
> 1960

Father pulls onto the campsite near Skipton. Jimmy helps wind down the stabilisers on the caravan. Mum watches, waving her menthol cigarette at midges. They sit down for dinner in the bay that converts into his parents bed. Jimmy already feels claustrophobic.

“James stop woolgathering. Eat your casserole”

“Remind me why we didn’t bring the Plant boy. You need a chap to pal with.”

“I’m afraid his mother wouldn’t allow it.”

Robert’s mother wouldn’t even notice. But they didn’t ask her.

They cannot.

Not holding.

Not kissing.

Not now.

“Please may I be excused?”

Jimmy stumbles into the twilight. Homesick.


	13. Trampled Under Foot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 13 prompt - Mountain 
> 
> (1952) 1958

She has this faded postcard of Snowdonia in her handbag. He sees it when he’s nicking tuppence.

When he was tiny they rode up Snowdon in the tourist train. They stood in the wind with his arms wrapped round her legs. Hands in pale blue mittens. She was his everything once. Immoveable.

The postcard is from his uncle Iwan telling mom to stay away. He’s the last one they have left in Wales. Stony. Sharp. Grey.

When they are grownups he will ask Jimmy to go back there with him. Like a quest. To destroy the postcard in Mount Doom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ps - I did not mention in the earlier drabbles but all the family characters is Boy Next Door are simply fictional - they are not, in any way, based on JP/RP families or known people or childhood events.


	14. Houses of the Holy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 14 prompt - heartbreaker
> 
> rating - General 
> 
> August 1960

Jimmy skips up the stairway of the bus. Robert is waiting. Effervescent. They get the front seat. All the way into Birmingham.

“Two to Moor Street, please” Robert takes the tickets like they are passports to a new life.

“Do it”

Robert pokes Jimmy in the ribs. Jimmy combs his hair, slick into a ducks arse.

Robert blushes and looks away.

“Heartbreaker” he says, softly.

They are hushed entering the record shop. They find the right one quickly. Elvis looks back at them with his kissable lips. Doe eyes. Shocking, with his pink bomber jacket.

“Happy Birthday” Jimmy says. Solemn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The record is a double A side RCA reissue 1958 of All Shook Up/ Heartbreak Hotel.


	15. You Shook Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt = Dazed
> 
> Rating = Teens? General? 
> 
> 1960

‘You’re my star’ you said

Held my hand.

Can you feel me shining from my window?

When you.

When you.

When you.

Oh Robert.

You fell through my hands and...

Can you feel me glowing?

Your star.

Arwen. You said I was Arwen. That summer. When I thought you were drowned. That day. You said I was brave.

But.

You.

Did the first.

Fell through my fingers. I wanted to put them. I wanted.

You kissed.

Oh Robert. You kissed. We. I wanted and. We.

I could feel you breathing and you said I make you feel.

Music.

My star.


	16. Hats off to (Nat) Harper

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 16 prompt - Thrill  
> Rating - general
> 
> 1955

“You’re joking. How are they thrilling?”

Jimmy is barmy. Always was.

“I shan’t let you come to the pet shop if you’re going to be condescending”

“Whatending?”

“Conde... Buggeroff. Stop teasing.”

He’s not really upset, but he’s setting his shoulders to be right.Standing between his fish-tank and Robert like he’s guarding treasure.

“Fish are not ‘thrilling’ Jimmy.”

“Cyprinids. You’ve never really looked. So how do you know then?”

“But they just... swim.”

“They are light if it were alive. Angels shrunk in the wash. They are music with tails.”

Robert looks. Really looks. Jimmy is right. He always is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> JP did keep fish afaik but this was inspired by Wetkitty420 / the-cypranid, and hers.


	17. Nobody’s fault but mine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 17 prompt - Achilles   
> rating - general
> 
> 1958

“Sore”

“Is it?”

“Yep. I can’t play on Saturday”

“Did you tell them. How you did it?”

“What? no.”

“Why though”

“Nobody plays Troy except us.”

“Achilles never fell off a wall.”

“Well my mom’s not a goddess”

“Put it on my knees”

“Ok, don’t wiggle.”

“Better?”

“Yes, Ta”

“Shall I read more?”

“No. I’ve gone right off him.”

“Cos you fell off the wall?”

“No. Cos what kind of friend lets Patroclus get killed like that?”

“He wants to. He’d do anything for him.”

“But he should have gone, instead of sulking. No point having a go at Hector.”

**Author's Note:**

> I (leds) like to write classic 100 word drabbles for prompt challenges but I will see how the muses take me.  
> As a queer author I'm hugely protective of these kids, who are based loosely on the public personas of Jimmy Page and Robert Plant. However their world is based on my own experiences growing up queer in the 1970s/80s and lgbtq British history, which even 20 odd years after when the story is set was painfully homophobic. 
> 
> CN: They do have an age appropriate peer sexual relationship so please read the rating for each chapter if this is squick for you.


End file.
